String instruments are among humankind’s most durable inventions, from ancient Greece lyres to priceless Stradivari violins, from imposing concert harps to elegant classical guitars. Music for string instruments makes up a significant portion of the repertory. Consider: Baroque trio sonatas, Brahms’s violin and ‘cello sonatas, Mendelssohn’s string symphonies, Beethoven’s string quartets, Bach’s suites for solo violin and solo cello, Rodrigo’s concerto for guitar and Ginastera’s for harp—the list goes on and on. Furthermore, great players of those string instruments count among our most legendary virtuosi: Joseph Joachim, Jascha Heifetz, Andrés Segovia, Mischa Elman, and Pablo Casals, not to mention the current crop of brilliant performers such as Viktoria Mullova, Gautier Capuçon, Gil Shaham, Daniel Hope, and many others.